Totem revolutions

The exaggerated rumours during the Egyptian revolution, that the revolution itself was a ramification of the existence of social networks like Facebook and Twitter is preposterous, and indicates the myopic understanding of such analysts.
While Facebook and Twitter did influence the rate of information dissemination and to some extent online mobilization, the idea that if for no Facebook and Twitter the Egyptian revolution and the Tahrir Square struggle would not have occurred is simply ridiculous.

The reason I am delving upon this example is to show the contorted reasoning people end up believing in. The idea that a revolution/ a change/ metamorphosis could be instigated and perpetuated via social networks or some other online token actions has been imbibed into the minds of people by the media, and a majority of the gullible have certainly endorsed this idea.

The Facebook Campaigns like Save Tigers, Support Anna Hazare, Stop Corruption, and others are to be treated as awareness increasing campaigns, using a new means of reaching out to people:Online Networks.
Unfortunately, posting up these campaigns on one's page and clicking the 'LIKE' button seems to be the end of this campaign to a lot many.

While nothing can replace the basic ground work in terms of understanding the problems, mobilizing people beyond the online networks (for, there is at least three quarters of the country out of this reach), contemplating pragmatic solutions and persuading the authorities to implement them, or in compelling cases (like in Egypt, and middle east) involving in struggles will what reap benefits. And certainly not just the Likes, reposts and shares of links and tweets.

The tendency of individuals to have executed their duties of being a citizen by performing these token actions online is highly increasing. People, I guess are considering this to be an extrapolation of online payment of taxes. Performing your duties online!
And such tendencies is what I am terming as "Totem Revolutions".

The token-like actions, the symbols which rise to become powerful totems in the current context are futile. Manifestation of the the cliche: "Means mistaken to be the ends". The acts of sharing web links, retweeting, forwarding mails, display picture badges, giving out one-ring calls (!?) and other product marketing-like strategies are most efficient in attracting the less concerned crowds, for the ones who really bother wouldn't require any of these wake up calls. These tokens, growing into totems should not be given anymore reverence than treating them for their worth,i.e, they are the newer means of mobilizing and awareness increasing methods at our disposal.  I again reiterate, these are no ends by themselves!

"Symbols are given power by the people. Alone a symbol is meaningless but with enough people blowing up a building (symbol) can change the world."
V for Vendetta

And a converse of this is also true. People who only cling on to a symbol forget the reality and are busy obsessing the totems! This, off late, has become the ubiquitous behavior of the 'concerned citizens'.

Online protests like the Anonymous groups, and the DDoS attacks in support of WikiLeaks had some tangible results, for, they didn't only mobilize online, they were conducting their struggle online, for they were fighting a peril being perpetuated online!
The arenas were different.

Further, using centralized and Government monitored networks like Facebook, Twitter would cripple any such movements. WikiLeaks versus VISA/Paypal/Amazon incident is a manifestation of this apprehension.

Here's the link of the manual circulated during the Tahrir Square protests, urging people not to use Facebook/Twitter!
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/01/egyptian-activists-action-plan-translated/70388/

Cumulative observations on these lines, through months has made me sit down and write this post. The increasing tendencies of the online activists, to trigger campaigns online is perfect. But, the aspect of clarifying that the means aren't the end have not been profoundly proclaimed by many of them.

And please, no more of Totem Revolutions.

Making my moves, like i wanted to!

Taking decisions in life, now, when I am at the verge of an important decision feels like playing a tricky game of chess!

I have thought deeply, evaluated the consequences, guaged the prospects and hoped for the optimum, and it feels precisely like an important move you've done on the board of chess; when you know the pawns will have a radical change, while you are desperately hoping the ramifications to turn out to be good!

It is easier said than done, to steer the happenings of one's life to fall in congruence, or at least near the mental envisage of what his/her life should become. But, once a while, a few important decisions put us right into the pilot seat and present us an opportunity to change the course of our lives.
And, to brave up and take those small risks to move closer to our purpose of life is as good can one's life can get.

Now, I am embarking upon a certain path, which will lead me closer to the essence of me. It might not be something grand or exciting to an outsider, but I am swelling with enthusiasm and euphoria, while I still feel a small tinge of apprehension :)

More than the future prospects, the current contentment I derive out of the control I have exhibited and the confluence of all the right things which have fallen into place make me feel wondrous and simply happy.

Banking on this hope and confidence, I am on MY WAY!

The droppings of capitalism!

Capitalist modes of running a society and its criticism is a highly elaborate exercise, and to take up that task I am still inadequately equipped. I shall save it for the future, to make it more convincing.

In this post, I want to focus on certain profound ramifications rendered by the crowning jewel of capitalism - Neoliberalism. 
 
As David Harvey in his book A Brief History of Neoliberalism points, "Neoliberalism has, in short, become hegemonic as a mode of discourse. It has pervasive effects on ways of thought to the point where it has become incorporated into the common-sense way many of us interpret, live in, and understand the world."

And I want to concentrate on the way many of us perceive, interpret and understand the world, well in an increasingly contorted way. To hint at what I am talking about, allow me to present a couple of contemporary ethic statements as heard by me!

"You know you are poisoning the customer, better give him a slow death than a sudden one, so that you get out safe... "

"When you're faced with a vicious snake and a close competitor, kill the competitor first!"
Theories like,
Profit making by legal, although unjust means is perfectly sane.
Professional life comes first, and personal life is secondary.
Rivalry amongst peers taking newer heights of animosity.
Exploitation legitimized in the name of profit making.
And many more observations, which are getting ubiquitous and are successfully draining out the core values of us humans. It is evolving into a system where cynicism and skepticism are increasing instead of trust and belief amongst people.

Even this aspect of declinging trust is not of concern, as much as the silly sancitity assigned to these anomalies. These digressions away from the human values, inclined, contrarily towards the market values have found way into the ethics of the society. And that makes the future bleaker!

A price tag and a profit margin on anything and everything, including emotions and basic necessities is the fundamental basis of Neoliberalism. And we, the mere droppings of this system are more than willing to endorse and live by these false standards. If not a systemic revamp, at least pursuit of consciousness at a personal level against the perils of a system,which is polarized away from our natural good is imperative.

The oblivion of the small and the beautiful

Hasn't it been a while since a Postman knocked at your door? Or you went down and met your tailor to get your clothing stitched? Or that you've seen that bright entrepreneurial glee in the eyes of a small scale industrialist?

What has happened to the roadside Provision stores, to the Vegetable vendor who used to be a character to be pranked with, or the push cart kulfi waalas ?

Have you ever wondered how their lives have changed in a mere span of a decade here in India?

These are little people and their aspirations that the Monopolistic system has trampled and tread upon to give us this supposedly glorious world of today. A world, which values nothing but vicious personal gain; A system which approves you of the sanctity to tread on others to greedily move ahead; Move ahead as in: In this race, a rat-race; Each one is being raced down to the deepest levels of their values, and reducing every evolved emotion and relationship into a commodity.

Where are all the small, simple and beautiful things!
Small goes unnoticed: Everything ought to be grand and spectacular, beyond the saturation of our senses.
Simple is silly: Things have gotten super sophisticated beyond our realms of comprehension.
Beautiful is everything that carries a heavy price tag: Today's beauty has got our aesthetic sense go numb.

One such occupation....

When this is the framework you let people to thrive in, there is nothing but the sad, unattended funeral of heritage of occupations like weaving, carving, pottery, even farming, and various other small occupations, which form important segments of our evolution have demised, or are at least at the verge of oblivion from the known section of humanity.

A debate whether these have been displaced at the cost of modernization and development for the sake of the rest of us can be taken up, and we would eventually stand guilty.
Each of us can do a lot to avert this oblivion of our own small and the beautiful.


PS: As I am composing this post, I am contemplating of a contemporary Swadesi Movement for self sufficiency and most importantly self conservation of our society!
If you believe we can do it better together, then let's get together!

The ever eluding change

Most of us profusely talk about change. It has come to be inherited in our social behavior. We feel compellingly necessitated about change, or at least to talk, or to be part of a talk about change. The problem herewith is the extent, quality and feasibility of the change we are envisaging, and how we intend to accomplish it?

Before answering these questions,let us try to be honest:
Most of the times, all of the talks we hear about 'Change' end up being merely self-approving, and/or pretentiously show that we are somehow concerned about the events around us. With some help from deep introspection, we would easily arrive at the cognizance of it being plain superficial.
Unfortunate as it is, we cannot afford to disregard this behavior, as there is a huge section of the society affiliated to such a school of thought.

When change is what we aspire for; be it within or outside oneself, it eludes us. It is the nature of change to be elusive. To bring about the change we really want to, beyond the captivating speeches and obscuring ideas, it takes a clear vision backed by immense efforts:
Focussed efforts directed towards a clear vision.

Talking is good, but only talking is catastrophically bad.
We need to transcend from the monotonous monologues of the verbal sphere to the actual action sphere. We need to firstly, and most importantly dissect our own belief system, to see what we aspire for.
If we are able to endorse ourselves to an already existing like-minded sect, very well. Else, we need to necessarily build one such sect. The power of individually identical but conforming thoughts, coupled with synergistic actions have never failed to shake up the world.

Aspirations to bring about change come as a reaction to the extremities we impulsively observe in our daily life. Without grooming our understanding and/or without equipping ourselves with the quintessential implements to enable us in persistently holding on to our convictions, there is no hope of bringing any substantial change. To counter the elusiveness inherent to change, we need to strengthen our convictions as well:

Focussed efforts directed towards a clear vision emanating from strong convictions, 
else change shall continue to elude the pseudoers...

Eluding...

The Definitely Detached Diaspora

Urban life these days has turned out to be a haven for all of us, who are deeply engrossed in our own hectic schedules and overtime slogging at work, with almost zero concern towards all the other crucial proceedings in the society.

When I say the other crucial proceedings, I do not point at that the 'Breaking News' of the urban paparazzi; But, about the section of population that is beyond the margin of the elite vision, or the press and media, in the words of P.Sainath. I mean the real lot of people who are below all possible lines the elite could describe including the Poverty line.

The present state of our personal well being, as individuals is mostly a matter of chance - Circumstantially favored to have born in our families and in the amicable conditions of society that we are in. Imagine yourself in one rural corner of India, or in a tribe on a remote forest edge; I bet it would have taken a couple of lifetimes to struggle and reach the state we are in, in an upstream struggle also against the perfectly imperfect system.

When we do visualize scenarios such as these, it becomes important to place ourselves in these frames of reference and choose the roles we would want to play - Whether we would want to aggravate or neutralize the growing discontent and disparity.

We are that small diaspora of Indians who have had decent education, other basic and not so basic facilities at our disposal. Happy as we are in this kind of a secluded ambiance, it is also of prime importance that we should be the ones who will work and make the society grow even. We have the tools at our disposal- education, cognizance and a human network waiting to be used. These are the tools,which we can use with a little added effort and increased consciousness to bring some change in the conditions of the sections we have secluded ourselves from.

We have our excuses of being exhaustively utilized at our jobs and careers; And that is what the system wants you to do, so that you do not interfere with the flowing mechanisms of exploitations it has ployed around you, using you as a collaborator. By breaking out of the carapace of this seclusion, we can do small wonders if not major changes in the society as it is today.

Decentralization and Redistribution

Decentralize and redistribute:
This should form the slogan; a slogan representing the need of the hour. The need being, a revolution which would enable the dis-empowered individual, while redistributing the concentrated powers from monopolies. Individuals as entities are losing the little bit of foothold and control over their lives, and are more so becoming functions of the elaborate plays by few corporations surrounding them.

Every field invaded by humans has now transformed into existences of monopolies alone, comprising of few individuals who are effortlessly,facilitated by the system, controlling and manipulating the rest of the population . A grim situation projecting a bleak future...

It has been well proven that, the salvation for the community from the clutches of this exploitative system would come only by "Elaborate Decentralization for uniform Redistribution".

Models like the Free Software Movement, where the individuals and the togetherness play important roles in producing quality work, generating alternatives to the monopoly products in the society are to be emulated on wider scales, with necessary modifications applied to the different fields of application.
This empowers the individuals, and adds the community spirit: A holistic feeling, instead of the ever increasing antagonism between the lucky few and the not-so-lucky rest of us.

Another, important alternate means manifested in today's world is empowering individuals in the media and information domains. Wikipedia, Open libraries and blogging have increased the unbiased spread of information in an almost ideal manner, without getting constrained by influences of any other aristocracy or bureaucracy.

Blogging, particularly has increased the disemination of personal opinions, and formulation of unbiased community opinions so that people can still make themselves heard in the deafening chaos of the paid news and media frenzy.

We need to tackle all aspects of the monopolized perils in the society. Individuals having their role to play in the formulation of the community facet is the need of the hour. If things are left with the monopolies and the certain elite, it is going to worsen and the individual as such is going to remain the silent puppet in the hands of the system, while the system is busy exploiting us.

Decentralize and redistribute!

Applying a comprehensive approach with elaborate planning and meticulous execution, with the above principle as the motive behind is what is required for the genuine betterment of the things all around us.
A little freudcheying on these lines will help for sure....